Laurel Nakadate Quotes

[Photography] ties back into this feeling of wanting to watch things fall and the moment before they break. Fireworks are that way for me - this lovely thing that blows up and is gone. It all goes back to this desire to record things before they disappear - the original reason we take pictures, right?

Death is sad, yes, but there are some great laughs you can find there.

I wanted to tell stories that moved. Nothing stays the same, and that's why photography is important. The world flickers and changes, and that's why video is important.

Heartbreak is when you're just far enough away from what you desire that you can feel it. Change is the Pangaea moment. I feel like I'm at this point in my life where I have created this place, this island in the ocean, and I'm happy there.

Although I get a lot of ideas from things that have happened in my life, I see the final product as a place where my imagination meets my experience. What I love about photography is that nothing is really as it seems.

A lot of people think that my work is about mocking or making fun of things, but a lot of it is about discomfort and making myself as uncomfortable as the men feel, or putting myself in a situation where I'm revealing my loneliness as much as they're revealing theirs.

I think people like to have everything be perfectly morally clear. When the lines get blurred it worries them. I'm not worried. I don't think the men are either. But I think that the videos bring up feelings in people that they don't want to feel. Sometimes people get really mad. That's okay.

A cupcake is like a great pop song. The whole world in less than three minutes. And it's impossible to have a bad cupcake. In New York you walk everywhere. So I'm always looking, always on the eternal search for the perfect cupcake. I take them very seriously. It's like hunting and gathering for me.

There's such an energy created when the world is turned upside down, and when things are good again it's nice to take note. Then it goes away. Change. Change means friction. Friction happens where things aren't quite right, when everything is separating, when nothing is the same. Later you piece it back together.